Decontamination shelters are increasingly in demand. Portable shelters are especially useful for “first responders” such as mobile medical crew and law enforcement officers as well as for military personnel and others working in the field (i.e. not in permanent institutional settings). Recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus in west Africa, for example, have highlighted need for equipment and structures useful to decontaminate medical workers treating infected populations.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,597 to Healey details a relatively simple decontamination shelter. As shown in the Healey patent, the shelter may include multiple adjacent compartments. One compartment may be designated a shower area and include a shower head. According to the Healey patent, “[t]he shelter desirably is comprised of flexible waterproof material and scaffolding in the form of hollow tubes with connecting fittings which can be erected to support the shelter and easily dismantled when the shelter has served its purpose.” See Healey, col. 1, 11. 52-56. No inflation of any portion of the shelter occurs, however. Moreover, presumably because it employs substantial structure in the form of “tubular metal posts,” see id., col. 3, 11. 17-19, the Healey patent fails to contemplate utilizing any ballast for stabilizing the shelter when constructed.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,624,543 to Sample, et al., discloses another decontamination shelter intended to be portable, “lightweight, and rapidly deployable.” See Sample, col. 1, 11. 15-16. Preassembled, the shelter “comprises a frame movable between a stowed configuration and a deployed configuration and a canopy associated with the frame.” See id., col. 1, 1. 66 to col. 2, 1. 1. As with the shelter of the Healey patent, those of the Sample patent are not inflated and have self-supporting frames including substantial structure in the form of multiple aluminum struts. See id., col. 4, 11. 4-8. Fabric straps or other “support elements” may be used “in cases where additional structural support is desired, such as . . . in windy conditions.” See id., col. 4, 11. 24-61.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 8,365,804 to Genovese, et al., identifies a portion of yet another decontamination shelter. Designed “to form a gas-impermeable barrier in a structural location such as a hallway,” see Genovese, Abstract, 11. 1-3, the device “is composed of an inflatable support section which contains two doorways separated by an inner compartment, and an outer, expandable bladder.” See id., col. 1, 11. 48-50. Because intended for use within a structural location (i.e. indoors), the device is not subject to windy conditions or other destabilizing hazards and thus too lacks any ballast.